Flint, Michigan, pipe-replacement cost nearly doubles: newspaper

(Reuters) - The cost of replacing water lines in Flint, Michigan, has nearly doubled amid a health crisis from high lead levels in drinking water, the Detroit Free Press reported on Saturday. The average cost for replacing a service water line in Flint through a pilot project that ended this month was $7,500, the newspaper said. The figure is almost twice the $4,000 estimated by the state Department of Environmental Quality at the beginning of Flint's water crisis last fall.